1). Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a merchant hosted checkout system and method.
2). Discussion of Related Art
A consumer who shops for goods or services online may often be given the option to use a selection of payment sources during checkout, such as payment by credit card, debit card, payment from an account held by an institution, or to charge for a purchase on their phone bill.
When the consumer selects to charge to their phone bill, a merchant server instructs a billing server which is aligned with a carrier server to carry out the charge. The billing server usually communicates with a consumer mobile phone to confirm the charge before placing the charge on the phone bill at the carrier server.
In such a system of charging the majority of the control resides with the billing server allowing relatively little flexibility for a merchant server to construct a user interface that is both functional and compliant with standards that are required at the billing server.